Straw is gaining popularity as a building material. A tower is being built in Eindhoven, and with a little luck, the Netherlands will have its own factory by 2028. The latter is good for the environmental balance sheet. “Actually, it’s nonsense,” says Jan Walrecht, founding partner of Strotec. “CO2 doesn’t stop at the border.”
Straw? Straw. Walrecht has been diving into this popular and promising building material for a while now. He sells ready-made facades and building blocks that are currently produced on a fully automated production line in Slovakia. If Walrecht has his way, that will change soon. “It’s time for a factory in the Netherlands. Then we can start using Dutch straw as well.”
That goal is closer than ever. EcoCocon, the parent company of Strotec, which produces floor-to-ceiling straw panels, has just submitted a grant application for a straw-processing plant in the Netherlands. Walrecht: “Eight Dutch provinces have expressed interest.”
2028
The plan is for that production facility to be up and running by 2028. Whether that will happen remains to be seen. “In six months, we’ll find out if we’re getting the grant. It’s very exciting, because we’ve put a lot of work into this. Why is it important that this factory gets built? Currently, CO2 savings aren’t included in the environmental performance calculation (Mpg). Personally, I think that’s nonsense, because the CO2 problem doesn’t stop at the border.”
Walrecht isn’t giving up and has believed in the power of straw as a building material for over ten years. “It grows quickly, is easy to work with, and, on top of that, there’s plenty of straw. As long as we drink beer and eat bread and pasta, we’ll need grains. The stalks are left over as a byproduct, and we turn them into building components. In the Netherlands alone, there’s enough straw to build 75,000 homes every year.”
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